Tea
by Purple Mongoose
Summary: Juurokougou (Android 16) and Sailor Pluto have tea by the Gate of Time in this one-shot vignette. [Complete]


Tea  
  
*****  
  
Author's Notes: Well, I simply felt obliged to write a fanfic for Juurokougou - Android 16! I don't understand why nobody writes any crossover fanfiction for him. Why not? Now, the Senshi he is interacting with in this story could be a friend or perhaps something more (I lean toward the latter, personally), depending on the reader's point of view. Please enjoy! (And fret not - I'm working on "Shellshocked" as well as "Damned Do, Damned If You Don't" this afternoon, okay?)  
  
*****  
  
"Konban wa, Juurokougou-san," Sailor Pluto nodded her head respectfully, seating herself at the small, high tea table that formed up out of the mists surrounding the Gate of Time. Her staff, shaped like an enormous silver key topped by a garnet handle, rested on her shoulder, tucked safely in her arm.  
  
Her companion, the proverbial gentle giant, was seated as well, face solemn and set as per norm, although he smiled a little at her and inclined his head in return, saying politely, "Konban wa, Setsuna-san."  
  
Waving a gloved hand through the air, the table twinkled with a greenish black light, suddenly overlaid by a simple white cloth upon which an unadorned blue teapot rested in the center. Another wave of her elegant hand and twin cups of blue china fell to rest softly on their matching blue saucers. A wisp of steam trickled out of the teapot's elongated neck.  
  
"Tea?" she asked, grasping the flowing handle.   
  
"Hai," he nodded.  
  
Silence fell, comfortable and waiting as Pluto reached over, filling his teacup with the steaming liquid, then drawing herself back to fill her own, billowing clouds of steam shyly rising up, mingling with the eternal mists of her plane of existence.  
  
"How has the afterlife been?" she smiled sweetly, dark green hair looped up in a stylish single bun on the top of her head, locks falling down straight. "I trust it hasn't been too hard."  
  
"No," he replied, lifting his teacup and sipping. "Heaven is an extraordinary place. There are so many birds and other innocent beings. It's been a relief to learn that most of Cell's victims have gotten their place in heaven."  
  
"Well," Pluto responded thoughtfully, raising her own teacup to her pursed lips, blowing off some burning steam before swallowing a bit of the tea, "if I remember heaven correctly, it must be wonderful. I hate this accursed loneliness here, you know, and sometimes I wish I could beg God to take this mantle off my shoulders and let me rejoin the heavenly host." She smiled shyly, then, ducking her head and hunching her shoulders, legs crossed at her knees, as she hid her blush with the steam dripping up from her tea. "It's meant so much to me for you to come and visit every day."  
  
Juurokougou let a simple smile grace his face, framed by red-hair. "I enjoy these teas immensely," he admitted, drinking once more. "I can't remember ever being able to talk to anybody else who enjoyed the simpler things as well."  
  
"I quite agree," she grinned, a rare thing to appear on her exotic brown face.  
  
A lone chime broke through the chill, misty air. A frown flitted across Pluto's face and, sighing, she wafted her hand through the air once more. The table was bare once again and it melted into the dark shelf they walked on, chairs doing the same once she and Juurokougou stood up, the former in her Senshi fuku, the latter in his curious Earth garb.  
  
"Until tomorrow," she said hopefully, extending a hand.  
  
He smiled, clasping the proffered hand with his larger one, shaking it kindly. "Until tomorrow," he echoed.  
  
The next instant, Juurokougou simply wasn't there.  
  
With a regretful sigh, Sailor Pluto hoisted her rod, silently summoning a single silver throne to grow charmingly out of the floor of sorts. She sat in it, plucking the Garnet Orb out of its place on her rod, letting the silver staff rest on the throne's arm. Twirling the red jewel in her hands, she stared searchingly into its enigmatic depths as if it were a crystal ball.  
  
"If only you were permitted to stay longer, my friend," she murmured and, reflected for a moment in the surface, Juurokougou was shown smiling at their daily tea.  
  
"If only…"  
  
*****  
  
Well? How was it for a one-shot? ??  
  
Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease.  
  
DISCLAIMER:  
Sailor Pluto is © to Takeuchi Naoko-san, Kodansha, DiC, Cloverway, Toei Animation, Mixx Entertainment, etc.  
Juurokougou © to Toriyama Akira-san, Shogakun (?), FUNimation, Toei Animation, Viz Entertainment, etc.  
"Tea" is © in its entirety to myself, referred to on-line as PallaPlease and/or Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease. 


End file.
